Now, I am not here to completely make a crap storm on Dellin Betances one single bit, I just wanna put that out there right away. I am a Yankees fan first, and fantasy guys on my team second. I am simply here to make a cumulative prognosis on stats from last year and how they correlate to this year. In this early part of the preseason, Betances has a manageable ADP of 94, or basically the 5th closer off the books. There are a few factors that I am worried about as we get nearer to the season, and I just wanted to point them out. (As if you were buying me a beer, and we were sitting at a bar swapping war stories, and comparing notches on each others belts.)

I’m not a total ass. Partial? Sure! I have no problem with that. With that said (here comes the ass part!), I have no sympathy for Josh Hamilton. Everywhere you look you hear about how heartbreaking, sad, *searches Thesaurus.com for sympathetic word* it is that happened to Hamilton. Light a candle for the literal manifestation of the prayers that you send out to him. Put on If You’re Gone by Matchbox Twenty and picture Rob Thomas singing directly to Josh. Go to your local package store and protest until they close on Sundays. Do what you want, but you know what’s heartbreaking to me? The fact that spring training starts and the baseball news that people are discussing is Hamilton running down the wrong foul lines. Also, I feel like most of the sad emoticons that go out for him are generated because he believes in God, family and is white, especially the last one. If he were non-white, there would be no sympathy from anyone. A Josh Hamiltonguez would be released by his club and the public’s silence would be deafening. Arizona would even consider building a fence to keep him out. A Josh Hamiltonjackson would be vilified and there would be a criminal case opened with only the Reverend Al Sharpton standing by his side. Torii Hunter would need to say something, because no one else is. My advice for Hamilton is get some help, but stay away from Dr. Drew, because one out of three celebrities never make it out of Celeb Rehab. Maybe at some point Hamilton can get past the crack and back to the crack of the bat, but I don’t have much hope for him this year and have adjusted my top 100 outfielders. Anyway, here’s what else is going in spring training for fantasy baseball:

This is a post for the fantasy baseball drafters who use Excel, Google Docs, or some other war room software that automatically totals a drafted team’s stats while in the middle of a draft. Or perhaps for those of you who do mock drafts or simulated drafts.

Welcome to the 2015 Razzball Team Previews! You’ll find everything you need to know about each team to get yourself ready for the upcoming fantasy baseball season. And I mean everything folks. We’ve got line-ups, charts, Slurpee’s, lube, a guide for beginner electricians, and even a cactus! Oh, wait, yeah, like half of those things are actually what I have in front of me… But hey, what’s the point of lube and cacti if you can’t share? Truer words have never been written. We also have a very special guest… Conor Frederick from Red Sox Life, to provide his take on what the team has in store this season. So without further ado (and plenty of lube and cacti), let’s check out the 2015 Boston Red Sox!

This draft was by Yours Trudy. Never understood that, Yours Trudy. Who is this Trudy that everyone is talking about? No, no, I’m not changing the subject before even embarking on the subject simply because I’m not happy with my team. How dare you j’accuse Yours Trudy of that! So, yesterday, on the Not-the-Ides of February, Grey Albright, the Fantasy Master Lothario (don’t abbreviate it!) took part in a 12-team NL-Only draft that was commissioned by Scott White of CBS Fantasy. You know, CBS, they brought you such head-scratchers as Viva Laughlin and Travis d’Arnaud as a top 60 overall pick. In fact, I razzed one of the CBS ‘perts about his d’Arnaud love in the beginning of the draft, then the room nominated d’Arnaud and the CBS ‘pert didn’t draft him. I think I might’ve shamed too hard. *shrugs* C’est la. This league is deep so hold onto ye old hat. (If you want a shallower league, play against me and 1,000 of your closest buddies in the Razzball Commenter Leagues.) Anyway, here’s my 12-team NL-Only team and some thoughts:

Everyone has their own method of determining their draft board and I imagine mine is rather unique. My early focus is on playing time/injuries so I can run Steamer rates against them and run the results through my Player Rater $ calculation. I then compare this against NFBC ADP and any expert drafts to get a sense for the outliers. As the preseason crawls on, I find myself digging into more and more players and determining whether they are players I want on my team based on their market value.

My tweak this year has been to analyze the outliers (guys my Player Rater is high/low on) earlier in the preseason. Projections are far from perfect and I have no problem drafting a guy above or below my $ value if I feel passionately about his value. These analyses are not terribly thorough – just scanning their FanGraphs pages for peripheral stats and reading Baseball Forecaster and Baseball Prospectus player summaries (the former of which being more helpful than the latter). I also check against Grey’s rankings so I can identify on which players we will inevitably debate.

Below are three pitchers – Julio Teheran, Mat Latos, Tyson Ross – where my Player Rater is way more pessimistic than the other sources I have reviewed. While my reasons vs Steamer’s reasons may differ, it still ends up with the same conclusion: I think these guys are being overvalued and I cannot see how any of three will end up on any of my teams.

The GistThis is a strong farm system that boasts both talent up the middle and arms to bolster a young rotation headlined by Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, and Jacob deGrom. Noah Syndergaard and Travis d’Arnaud were acquired in the R.A. Dickey trade, and with Syndergaard arriving sometime this summer, Mets fans will finally see the fruits of that trade at Citi Field. Dilson Herrera should also stick in the majors at some point this season. One of 2014’s pleasant surprises was the recently graduated deGrom, who will look to build on a 2014 rookie campaign in which he posted a 2.69 ERA with 144 strikeouts in 140 innings pitched. After a demotion to Triple-A early in the year, Travis d’Arnaud also posted good numbers with 13 homers in 421 plate appearances.

Players are going to play, play, play, play, play, play. The haters are going to hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. And Grey’s going to hate Matt Holliday. Shake it off! I’ve been waiting for years to write this post. Just biding my time, rubbing my fingers together like an animated villain. If you look at me real fast, twirling my mustache, plotting Holliday’s schmohawk post, you might see the human incarnate of Snidely Whiplash. Each year, I’d look at Holliday and see a guy that consistently put up fantasy stats with dashing good looks. A regular Dudley Do-Right. They even both wear red and ride a horse. Holliday’s horse is, of course, his chauffeur, Carlos Lee. Dudley Do-Right is a Canadian Mountie, and Holliday is from Oklahoma, which is a known hatchery for Mounties. Regularly, you hear about Oklahomans being kidnapped into the Mountie army. Like how the North Koreans kidnap the Japanese. (I saw a documentary on this.) The similarities are endless! But, now, Holliday, you’re 35 years old, you can’t move as fast, and you’re mine! Also, out of 35 ‘perts polled (say that fast 117 times!), I had Holliday ranked lower than everyone, so obviously I needed to write this post. It was my duty! (Hehe, I said duty.) So, what makes Matt Holliday overrated for 2015 fantasy baseball?

We’ve got another big year of GIFfing, Gamescore+ , breaking down every pitch to a tedium… it’s going to get my motor running about as hard as every Corey Kluber start!

I hope everyone has had a nice winter, and enjoyed an awesome year with us so far over on Hoops. Good thing it’s an indoor sport! Northeast getting more snow than Tony Montana’s desk. But with the allure of the weather warming (it hasn’t yet), we can all get together and talk some starting pitching (it’s deep, convo over). With depth comes two interesting schools of thought – should you go with aces early because there’s so little distinguishing the mid-tier and breakout guys? Or wait entirely and build your whole staff late? Of course there’s 50 Shades of Grey, which is still my usual approach. Hopefully Grey’s next book will be 51 Shades of Grey Albright. Shade 1 – mustache play.

Enough foreplay, below are my top 100 SP ranks! With the great pitching depth, comes great responsibility a lot of guys out of the 100 that are probably in other ranks here and there. Pitchers 70-130 are so hard to differentiate… But as always, please shoot your comments below on what ya think, and happy pitching 2015!

Fellow RCL’ers, it’s your pre-narrator for the pre-RCL 2015 season, back to bring you into the fold for everything RCL. That’s pre, I guess. And also type RCL and pre as many times as possible. Needs more RCL and pre if you ask me. Anyhow, mark this day in your calender folks. It is a day which will (probably not) live in infamy. It is a day where we will chase history for the good of all mankind. Are we curing cancer? No. Solving world hunger? I just ate a Kit-Kat, so we might have some more work to do on that front. Are we creating a foundation to rescue stray animals? Ef no! We’re doing something much-much more important (not really). Today, I am making it our personal goal to create at least 100 RCL leagues for the 2015 Fantasy Baseball Season. Are we close? Darn straight we are. Right now, we are at 65 RCL leagues, and I know we can do this. Together. As one. HOLD ME.